I mentioned SAMMY HAGAR just two weeks ago, so reporting on him again already is pushing it, but hear me out. I was reading a fascinating article about Sammy’s new record deal, and an epiphany struck: every year, Sammy looks more and more like the Dude. And since I have the audacity to call this a “news” column, here’s a fact: his upcoming album, Cosmic Universal Fashion, includes a cover of “Fight for Your Right To Party.” Ever notice how songs about waking up late for school and getting your porn stash busted by mom take on an exotic aspect when sung by 61-year-olds?

From the “alas” file: TRL, American youth culture’s most essential barometer of its own stupidity, is leaving the airwaves after 10 years of abject wretchedness. This is a show that made high-functioning retardates like CARSON DALY and JESSE CAMP famous, that exalted such worthless acts as JESSE McCARTNEY and HILLARY DUFF, that was synonymous with the boy-band boom of the early 2000s — how, in this nation we so love, could a show so monumentally worthless, so insulting to intelligence and destructive to culture, be cancelled? If you can’t make money off bad taste, teenage idiocy, and no-talent hackery, maybe this really is the end of the American era.

DMX is sitting in a Phoenix jail, now facing charges of theft on top of his recent drug conviction and still-pending possession and animal-cruelty counts. And rapper WEBBIE has been arrested after leading cops on a high-speed chase on a Mississippi highway. He’s facing felony counts for running from the cops and driving under the influence, as well as a misdemeanor possession charge. What the hell is society coming to when rappers are getting arrested before I’ve even heard of them?

That’s three paragraphs in a row where I’ve posed thought-provoking rhetorical questions, so I think I owe you an insightful declaration. ROB THOMAS must be fired into the sun; taxpayer money is no object. In case you’re wondering what reminded me of him, I was just checking out a little blurb about his new album on Billboard.com and he actually used the phrase “my pop sensibility.” Can you believe that jive? He’s co-opting the language of shitty critics to describe himself. This is worse than the time Gang of Four called their album “angular.”

PINK FLOYD founder and keyboardist RICHARD WRIGHT has passed on. Although bandmate David Gilmour provided a touching tribute to the man and his music, perhaps no one summed up our mood better than our old friend Neil Portnow of the Recording Academy: “Our deepest sympathies go out to his family and fans at this difficult time, as we remember this influential musician.” Wright is best known for his distinctive playing and songwriting on such albums as Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, and for his 1945 autobiography Black Boy, in which he recounted his turbulent youth as an impoverished African-American in Mississippi.

The GRAMMYS won three Emmys. Ha! It gets less funny the more you think about it, so please proceed forthwith to the next news item.

The Big Hurt: Lambert works it, 50 blows it, Moz ends it ADAM LAMBERT 's spicy AMA performance continues to dominate entertainment headlines, weeks after it first scandalized the nation — but why does America care what a man does with another man in the secluded privacy of the American Music Awards?

The Big Hurt: Aussie asses sued off MEN AT WORK — best known for their 1983 hit "Down Under" — have just had their pants sued off by a dead schoolmarm and her 78-year-old Girl Scout song.

The Big Hurt: Shill crazy You know, I might stop following real music journalism altogether. Press releases are so much better. Just when I start thinking it’s a slow week in silly pop news, I check the PR wire — a/k/a the bottom of the barrel — and dig up two of the greatest items I’ve ever seen .

The Big Hurt: Alternative rock songs I got up this morning filled with a furious hatred of alt-rock — I was tossing and turning half the night with Third Eye Blind's "Semicharmed Life" stuck in my head, a torment I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

THE BIG HURT: DIVING IN THE PR DUMPSTER | February 26, 2013 I've been dumpster diving in the PR bin, the rankest receptacle of music industry waste, and I've come up with a dripping fistful of the month's hottest garbage.

THE BIG HURT: LEANIN' WITH BIEBS | February 20, 2013 Bieber was allegedly photographed sipping something from a double Styrofoam cup, in close proximity to a big bottle of codeine cough syrup. This can only add up to one thing: lean . That purple drank, the laudanum of Screw, the deadly nectar of Pimp C.